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Klaus Hammerlik (* 1954)

• he was born on May 27th, 1954, in Riesa in the GDR

• he started school in 1960 at the Polytechnic Secondary School Heinrich Pestalozzi in Riesa

• after graduating, he was sent to an extended secondary school, where he did his A-levels and simultaneously completed an apprenticeship at the tyre factory in Riesa

• he volunteered for the army and joined the East Germany army (NVA) in 1973, where he was assigned to the air force

• until 1974, he completed a training course as non-commissioned officer

• he was transferred to Straßgräbchen near Kamenz, at the anti-aircraft missile force

• then he was transferred to another anti-aircraft missile force in Groß Döbern

• he got discharged from the army in 1976 and started to study Marxist-Leninist philosophy in East-Berlin

• after completing his studies, he worked as assistant philosophy teacher at the engineering college in Cottbus

• in 1982, he met his future wife, whom he married in the following year

• subsequently, he applied for a job at the Party School in Frankfurt (Oder) where he taught Marxist-Leninist philosophy in training courses

• in 1989, he was exempted from his teaching position to collaborate on the “Neues Forum”, a civil movement that helped shape the process of the German reunification

• in late 1989/early 1990, he cofounded an association for the disabled and became its general manager

• he then became the director of a service centre for disabled people

• he then developed an employment service for severely disabled people

• after a period of unemployment, he completed a training for social management and further training as sociotherapist

• now, he is involved at his local church, where he works in a soup kitchen

We spoke with Klaus Hammerlik, born in 1954 in Riesa about his parents’ and uncles’ involvement in the Second World War.

His father, Kurt Johannes Hammerlik was born in 1919 and grew up in Upper Silesia, which was back then still a part of the German Reich. He was a very athletic young man and played football in a sports club. There, he met a young woman called Helga Maria Christa Irena Harazim, with whom he fell in love and married. At that time, he completed an apprenticeship as distiller. His boss, a merchant, was planning on emigrating because of the political situation in Germany. Shortly before his departure, he made Kurt Hammerlik sit an exam as merchant and let him pass.

After passing the exam in 1939, Kurt Hammerlik got drafted to the Reichsarbeitsdienst, a mandatory labour service for all Germans between the ages of 18 and 25. He was supposed to take his final test in August 1939, but his examiner failed him deliberately. This meant, that Kurt Hammerlik hat to retake his exam in September and therefore did not get drafted for the invasion of Poland on the 1st of September. Instead, he repeated his exam, passed and got drafted directly to the army. He left behind his young wife, who would only see him again as sick and injured man.

In the Wehrmacht, Kurt Hammerlik was assigned to a police unit of the Sicherheitspolizei, operating behind the front lines, just like his two older brothers. He never spoke about what he did during the war. Only once, he mentioned that his brothers were responsible for driving cars, that most likely transported the gas to the emerging concentration camps. Another thing he talked about was the Battle of Stalingrad. There, he was severely injured in early 1943, and one of the last soldiers to be flown out, before the 6th army was annihilated.

Kurt Hammerlik was sent to a hospital in his hometown Hindenburg in Upper Silesia, to recover. Even though he got better, he took away a lifelong cardiac injury, as well as rheumatism from his war wounds. This meant for him, that he was unfit for battle and therefore assigned to the local air-raid protection, where he as instructor for drivers of fire trucks. His wife had already worked in the air-raid protection as radio operator but with his return from war, she soon became pregnant and gave birth to their first son.

With the Red Army approaching in early 1945, the young family forged an escape plan for Helga and their infant son. In Riesa, Kurt Hammerlik had an uncle, living in a residential estate of the SA. They assumed that the Red Army would be fought off at the latest at the river Oder, meaning that anything west of it would be safe. Because Kurt Hammerlik was often away on assignments with the air-raid protection, he asked a friend to drive Helga Hammerlik and her son in a fire engine to Riesa. On their way to Riesa, they meant to stop in Dresden, to take a rest and refuel. But before they reached the city, the three refugees suffered a car accident. Fortunately, nobody was hurt but their escape got delayed, until they had repaired the fire engine. Ironically, this car accident saved their lives. Had they gone through with their plan and arrived in Dresden on time, they would have been in the city during the fatal bombing.

As was agreed, Helga Hammerlik finally arrived in Riesa together with her two-year-old son and sought refuge at the house of her husband’s uncle. However, she was turned away and thus stranded, alone, in a strange city, far away from home. So she went to the authorities and reported herself homeless. Because she had a German identity card, she was treated as a German citizen and was allowed to stay in Riesa. In November of 1945, her husband found her in Riesa. He had been taken prisoner of war by the Red Army in May but managed to escape multiple times. He, too, went to his uncle’s house and was turned away. He asked around in the city until he found his wife and son living on the outskirts of Riesa. The family rented a room from a teacher, who had been harassed by the Nazis for being a Social Democrat, but never sent to a concentration camp. The following day, this teacher affiliated Kurt Hammerlik in the Social Democratic Party for his protection.

The following years were characterised by the food shortage and subsequent hunger which contributed to the declining health of both Helga and Kurt Hammerlik. The majority of their relatives were still in Upper Silesia, which was now a part of Poland, so it was difficult to stay in touch. The Austrian radio broadcasting ran a program every day at midday, where people could submit messages to their missing or displaced friends and relatives. The Hammerlik family had agreed to request the song “Wer hat uns getraut” from the operetta “The Gypsy Baron” to signal to each other, that they were still alive and well.

Helga and Kurt Hammerlik were not the only ones of their relatives to leave Upper Silesia. Helga had a brother named Horst Harazim, who had voluntarily joined the SS as a teenager because he struggled at school. Early on in the war, he was taken prisoner of war by the French forces who offered him the choice between working in the mines or joining the Foreign Legion. For Horst Harazim, this was an easy decision to make, so he went together with the Foreign Legion to Indochina. In the fights, he was severely injured and brought to a French military hospital to recover. There, he met a French nurse, who he later married. They moved back to France, where their son Rudolf was born, who never learned German. After living in France for ten years, Horst Harazim received the French citizenship.

Even though Helga and Kurt Hammerlik were not as far away from their home in Upper Silesia as Helga’s brother Horst Harazim, they still suffered under the loss of their home and their community. In the GDR, the Germans who had been expelled from former German regions, were referred to as “resettlers”. Calling them “expellees” or “refugees” was considered a treasonous offense. And because Helga and Kurt Hammerlik were convinced Socialists and loyal to the GDR-regime, they never acknowledged their loss. Their son Klaus Hammerlik summarises, “They were only resettlers. Nobody talked about expulsion or flight, or about the crimes of the new occupying forces or the Polish army and authorities.” The Hammerlik family returned every summer to Poland to visit their extensive family. During these family reunions, everybody spoke German and they sang old German songs.

In 1954, Helga Hammerlik gave birth to her second son, Klaus. Because she could no longer work, seeing as she had to take care of her infant son, the family’s income dropped significantly. This is why her parents decided to move from Poland to the GDR. They were already retired and wanted to raise their grandson so that Helga Hammerlik could go to work again. Women in the GDR could take a day off once a month, so that they could do the housekeeping. On these days, Helga Hammerlik sewed her own clothes because she was a trained tailor and could save money this way.

His parents’ sense of homelessness led to Klaus Hammerlik’s own rootlessness. All his childhood, he felt like he did not belong: his parents did not want him speaking the local dialect of Riesa and his classmates ridiculed him for speaking differently from them. He later joined the East German military, then taught Marxist-Leninist philosophy at the university of Frankfurt (Oder). After the reunification of Germany, he started working for numerous initiatives for disabled people, converted to Christianity and now leads a soup kitchen in his local church.